Gene patents are a hindrance to innovation | Adam Rutherford

Scientists researching diseases such as cancer are impeded by having to pay companies who own specific gene patentsYou carry a set of instructions in every cell, encrypted in DNA. Your genome, 3 billion letters of genetic code, is not only unique to you now, but is unique to every human who has ever and will ever exist. It contains about 22,000 genes and it was a surprise to geneticists on completion of the Human Genome Project in April 2003 that we bear so few, fewer than a roundworm. But what you might find even more shocking is that hundreds, possibly thousands of these genes are effectively owned by someone else.The birth of gene patenting rapidly followed our ability to read human genes in the 1990s, and in general patents cover the processes of extracting, reading and diagnostic tests for specific bits of an individual's DNA. There is a myth that one fifth of the genes that each of us bears in our cells are patented, but this does not quite stand up to close scrutiny: the language used in many of these patents does not necessarily preclude their use. Nevertheless, any useful work, including research and genetic diagnosis, on a significant chunk of your unique genetic makeup is prohibited unless licensed.This might seem baffling. Patents bestow ownership on a process or an invention. Your genes are neither. But the fuzziness of the law has meant that patents can be issued on isolated genes. The best documented case concerns two genes that all of us have, BRCA1 and BRCA2....
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Comment United States Genetics Biology US supreme court guardian.co.uk Medical research Law Cancer Breast cancer Chemistry Biochemistry and molecular biology Ovarian cancer Science Comment is free Source Type: news